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Jeanne Narum, Doctor of Humane Letters

Narum

Throughout your long career you have been a distinguished spokesperson and ardent advocate for the liberal arts, and, more recently, for the sciences as an integral part of the liberal arts. Following administrative tenures at several colleges, including your undergraduate alma mater, St. Olaf College, you moved to a larger stage in 1988 as director of the Independent Colleges Office, which assists select liberal arts colleges in their relations with federal grantsmanship.

In 1989, you became the founding director of Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL), an informal national alliance of colleges and universities, including St. Lawrence, dedicated to strengthening undergraduate learning in the sciences, mathematics and engineering. Under your guidance, PKAL has become an influential and effective national force in this important endeavor. PKAL has hosted workshops on introductory courses; facilitated cross-disciplinary conversations on teaching and learning in science, technology, engineering and mathematics; assisted member institutions in planning new science spaces and in obtaining grants; acted as an “intelligence broker” for the exchange of information among member institutions; and consulted with college and university officials and faculty in improving the overall quality of undergraduate science education. You have kindly visited our campus often to provide guidance in these and other arenas in which PKAL is engaged.

As evidence of the wide-ranging respect in which you are held in the higher education community, you are, or have been, a member, consultant or advisor to over 20 educational boards and associations.

Your undergraduate major was music. While you may not have pursued a career in that field, you have orchestrated support for higher education, conducted important work in advancing it, and sung the praises of the liberal arts. In grateful recognition of an opus spanning half a century, St. Lawrence University proudly offers you the degree Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa.